Smells Like Teen Spirit
by Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper

(x) X (x)

Game 13
Nevermind

(x) X (x)

“I’m getting really sick of seeing you appear unexpectedly on my doorstep,” Heero deadpanned flatly when Duo came knocking on Nataku’s front door, late Sunday afternoon, the day after the whole glue fiasco. “If you’re stalking me, cut it out. I have enough of that in my life as it is.”

“Who would be stalking you? A newt?” Duo scoffed, turning his nose up in the air as he swept past Heero with a grand entrance into the shop. Missing whatever Heero was grumbling under his breath about pink amphibians, Duo took his time looking around the very interesting and ecclectic shop in search of his new part time employer. “Meilan told me to come around closing time today. Where is she?”

“Downtstairs,” Heero said shortly, pointing ahead of them to a narrow staircase at the back of the little shop that led down into the storage basement. He seemed to be avoiding standing right in Duo’s line of sight, though whether it was because he did not want to look Duo in the eye or because he was ashamed to let Duo see the light scrapes and bruises he still sported on his cheeks from yesterday’s fight. “We just got a new shipment in and we’re still taking stock, no thanks to you and your interruptions.”

“Well maybe next time you should tell Meilan not to train new employees when it gets in the way of your oh-so-perfect-schedule,” Duo shot back, saying the word ‘schedule’ in a snooty accent that made the word sound more like ‘shedule’. “Can you go get her please?” Duo went on, for once actually sounding serious. “It’ll get both of us away from each other.”

“Fine,” Heero ground out, stalking around his adversary and making his way towards the staircase. “Don’t touch anything until she gets here,” he snapped in a threatening tone before disappearing into the basement, leaving Duo to his own devices.

Meilan’s shop was a small little place, a bit bigger than a hole in the wall sort of deal, and quite a bit nicer. It definitely looked like some sort of pack rat’s place, with surfboards hanging on racks all across the ceiling and in every bit of worthwhile free wall space. The walls and the floor and ceiling were all made of cedar wood that gave it a very warm homey sort of feel. Clothes and merchandise were organized into cubbies built into the walls in little nooks of the oddly shaped room. The front counter was an interesting job off in the front corner of the shop, right next to the door. A wood framed glass display case filled with stickers, DVDs and such sectioned off the area, a surfboard fitted over the longer section to served as the countertop, giving it a very creative effect. An old fashioned cash register with round brass keys and a ringing drawer sat atop the surfboard counter; a large stereo system and a vast CD collection sat up on the shelving behind it. A large navy blue and white Hawaiian Island Creations flag hung over the open window beside the cash register.

“Oh, hey Duo,” Meilan’s voice lilted from the staircase as she climbed up from the basement, jarring Duo from his exploration of the shop. “Right on time too. Guess I should have told Heero you were coming.”

“No, it’s good you didn’t,” Duo mused offhandedly, pushing off the counter and striding over to where Meilan stood, reaching out to shake her hand. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for the loss of any grunt labour. Lord knows it’s hard to come by thugs like that nowadays.”

Meilan laughed at the comment, though the humour she found in it was nothing like what Duo seemed to find so amusing about it. “You think Heero’s a thug?” she managed to choke out between giggles. She jerked her thumb back in the direction of the stairs, “That Heero? Ha, but he’s so little, even if he does pack a lotta muscle there.”

“Right, a thug,” Duo repeated with a shrug, unsure of where the confusion was. “He’s strong and stupid. You can’t go making excuses for him because he’s short too.”

“What’s wrong with short people!” Meilan huffed, trying to stretch herself up a couple inches by standing on her toes, but she still barely only reached Duo’s nose. He laughed at her and clapped her heartily on the shoulder, much to her degradation. “Short people will take over the world one day, just you watch!”

“Uh huh,” Duo grinned cheekily. “I’ll see it when it happens.”

“Just you wait,” Meilan growled in a playfully dangerous tone as she turned and waved for Duo to follow her down the stairs. “We keep all our toys down here,” she was saying as she gripped the wooden rail and started down the narrow little staircase, pausing briefly on the landing to check that Duo was following at a satisfactory pace. “Sally left all her tools down on her workbench down here when she left for school, so you can just pick up where she left off.”

“Good, good,” Duo murmured absently, far more absorbed with taking in his new surroundings. Meilan really did have a cool setup going for her. As Duo stepped off the last stair, he found himself reminded very much of a library, only with surfboards instead of books. Tucked just beside the staircase, behind him, was a workbench, presumably the one Meilan was talking about. Skateboards and various skate parts were arranged all across the adjacent wall. She had done well cheering up what would have been a bland concrete storage area with lots of hanging beads, paper lanterns, printed, tye-dyed sheets and other hippie 1960’s era decorations wherever she had the space.

“You can come in whenever you have the time and just work at your own leisure,” she was saying as the sound of footsteps echoed from behind the surfboards. She turned around just as Wufei emerged with a very flat expression on his face, still talking to Duo as she quirked a quizzical eyebrow at him. “And of course I’ll pay you. Granted, I can’t afford to pay you much, but I’ll do what I can, and if you ever need a favour, feel free to.... What Wufei?” she snapped.

Wufei held out a clipboard, pinching its metal fastener with his thumb and forefinger as he pointed at something on the top page with his other hand. “Yuy wants to know what to do with these,” he said to clarify when he realized that his silence and obscure hand gestures were not getting the message across.

“Give me tha-a-at!” Meilan stalked over towards Wufei and snatched the clipboard out of his hands. She turned around and pored over the papers in moody silence, flipping them over every now and then to read things printed on the sheets underneath. Even if Wufei had not been standing in an obviously bored posture, arms crossed and staring at the ceiling, Duo highly doubted he would have noticed the pink blush that Meilan was effectively hiding from him with her turned back. Only when she had gathered herself did she turn around and return the clipboard to Wufei. “Stock them with the wet suits. There should be space.”

“Okay,” he said plainly, marching like a windup toy soldier back behind the surf boards from whence he had emerged before.

“Boys,” Meilan sighed to herself, shaking her head after him, a hand on each hip. “Always have to tell them verbatim what to do and how to do it or they don’t do it at all!”

“Surely you think we men are a tad different, eh, eh?” Duo purred, nudging her coyly and raising his eyebrows suggestively. Offhandedly, he caught sight of the watch he was wearing on his raised hand and his eyes became like large violet balloons. “Holy shit, I’m gonna be late!” he literally jumped in panic, drawing his wrist in for closer inspection. “Thank God I wear one of these whatchamahoozits!” He grabbed Meilan by the shoulders and shook her heartily, groping for one of her hands and pumping it up and down in a very neurotic manner. “Well Meilan, Nataku, Miss Long, thank you for the job and the business. I’ll see you ‘round!” He quickly let go and started bounding up the stairs two at a time, all to the steady rhythmic chant of, “Shit, shit, shit, shit....”

(x) X (x)

“Oooh,I wasstarting to worry that the Little Monster had chickened out and gone hiding again, like he’s so prone to do,” Solo’s snide greeting made Duo’s blood boil as he pulled up to the appointed spot in his black Deathscythe. It had turned out that he wasn’t as late as he thought he was when he had left Meilan’s, but it was still a good ten minutes later than the time they had previouslyagreed to meet at, regardless.

“I run and hide when there’s actually something to be scared of,” Duo snapped at the blonde boy sitting in the dark red car beside him. He drew his mouth in a tight line as he looked his former friend over in disgust. Solo had a gruff appearence, with longish blonde hair that fell in scraggly chunks over a dirty old bandanna he had tied around his head and all around his roughly defined face. He still sported the long familiar scar that Duo always remembered him having, even when they had first met, running from the corner of his right eye, across the bridge of his nose and ending parallel with the corner of his mouth. But back then, before his face had been painted with the scars of that old plague’s boils, Solo’s eyes had also been a kinder, sweeter shade of candied green, now hard and chipped like worn jade. He was not the same friend Duo had once had. “I’m not afraid of you, Solo!”

“Let’s not forget who’s number one and who’s number two, Duo!” Solo growled back, gunning his engine menacingly to match his angered tone.

Duo looked down at the car, expecting to see the same old white Porsche that he had grown used to racing against and beating the crap out of. “What happened to the Tallgeese?” Duo asked, trying hard to mask the genuine curiosity in his voice. While he may have hated Solo and all his gang now stood for, there was no denying that they were the only mechanics in town who could maybe hold a candle to him. After all, he had learned most of what he knew from them in the first place!

“What, don’t you recognize her?” Solo cooed, though there was definitely bitter triumph in that voice of his as he stroked the hull of his vehicle. “She’s back, and meaner than ever.” Duo looked again. Now that Solo mentioned it, the dark red Porsche he was staring at was the same old car, just with a new paint job and, presumably, a tune-up that included new engine parts and all those sort of goodies. Solo grinned as he took in Duo’s shocked face. “We call her Epyon now, don’t we boys?”

A loud crowing noise rose up from the rowdy bunch of ragamuffins standing underneath a nearby street lamp, illuminated in the dark night by the golden light.

“Same bet as usual, Solo?” Duo ground out between clenched teeth, always put down when he was outnumbered like this. Usually it all paid off when he won, but this time it seemed that White Fang had a good wild card in their Epyon. It was worrying Duo, quite frankly.

“Yeah, yeah, same bet,” Solo waved it off. He snapped his fingers at Duo and rubbed them together, “That is, if you’ve got the balls for it.”

“I know what’s on the line, thank you!” Duo shouted back. “Let me see the money.” The sight of Solo causally pulling the rolled up wad of bills from his front shirt pocket somehow comforted Duo and started to calm him somewhat.

“Alright, let’s get this bitch started,” Solo complained in a rather snotty sounding voice, considering he was probably the most down-and-out kid to ever roam the face of the planet. “The sooner we finish, the sooner I have time to go home and play.” He grinned devilishly at Duo and let out a wry and dangerous chuckle. Any good feelings that had been working inside Duo thanks to the money were instantly gone again at the sight of that dastardly grin.

One of the White Fang boys, a scrawny little thing with patched up jeans and a ratty corduroy coat, walked to the center of the deserted parking lot, standing in front of the two cars. He glanced from Deathscythe to the newly-dubbed Epyon and swallowed audibly before he started to speak. “Rules is easy, guys,” he spoke shakily in his strange uneducated street accent. “Jus’ once along ‘ee mountain road out o’ town an’ back again. Firs’ one back ta this ‘ere parkin’ lot gets ‘ee prize. Fair?”

“Yeah, get on with it,” Solo leaned out of Epyon to growl at the poor kid. Duo made a point of glaring heatedly at Solo for snapping at the poor runt, even though the blonde gang leader pretended to ignore just about everything Duo did outside of a conversation he, himself, had begun.

“Right, so when I give ‘ee signal, ya go,” the White Fang boy went on, trying his hardest to be official; as official as a drag race could be, in any case. He reached underneath his jacket and rooted around for a bit, drawing out a small pocket-sized pistol from somewhere beneath those tattered folds of corduroy. “Start them engines,” he said, sounding a bit more confident now that he had the weapon in hand as he slowly raised it over his head. Suddenly the silent night air came alive with the humming of revving engines. The boy shifted the gun from one hand to the other, still keeping it high aloft as he glanced from Duo to Solo and back again. “On me shot,” he said as the realization that the burning eyes set upon each driver’s face were going to haunt his dreams for quite a while after that. “Three....”

Duo glanced over to the nearby sidewalk where the rest of the White Fang gang was standing, all of them smirking and chuckling evilly, even in the glow of the streetlight, seeming darker than the midnight sky. He recognized a few of them, Alex, Mueller and a few others, the ones who he had known as a child when he was a part of White Fang. They looked even more frightening than the newer gang members, who seemed to only be following their angry example for lack of anyone else to hide behind and anywhere else to go. Though little, physical features about the older members had changed, such as height and build, all of them had this horrible aura of hatred that was so acutely directed at him that Duo figured that Quatre would probably drop dead from an overburden on his Sense had he been around to feel it. They still had those scars, both physical and internal, slashed all across their faces. It stabbed at the flesh of Duo’s heart that those people had once been his family and that they had rejected him out of spite, jealousy and prejudice. Seeing them all looking so venomous brought around wishes that he had never been born a mutant. Duo gripped Deathscythe’s wheel and looked away. That was his past; he did not need to dwell on them anymore.

“Two,” the boy with the pistol called out, running down between the cars to stand behind them and well out of the way. Duo glanced up in the rearview mirror at the kid, watching as he squinted his eyes closed and pulled the pistol’s trigger, the loud explosion that accompanied the bullet’s launch drowning out his final shout of “One!”

Duo’s booted foot slammed on the gas pedal the second he heard the shot, causing Deathscythe to throttle forward much like the bullet that had just been released from the starter’s pistol with the scream of squealing tires. Gaining speed as he flew neck-and-neck with Solo down the flat straightaway ahead of them, he downshifted into fifth gear and pressed the accelerator all the way down to the floor. The bellowing, buzzing sound of both engines interrupted the stillness of the sleeping town as they went, Duo’s blasting radio just audible above the whipping wind as it whistled around them.

{Load up on guns and bring your friends.
It’s fun to lose and to pretend.
She’s overboard and self-assured.
Oh no, I know a dirty word.}

Soon they were reaching the outskirts of the town, the road they were on starting to climb up into the winding mountain roads that connected the hidden cove to the rest of California. They were narrow and dangerous two-lane highways that could barely facilitate two passing cars, lined with only a worthless tin guardrail that would do absolutely nothing to prevent a fall down to the rocky beaches below. When they were not racing by the perilous drops, they were shooting through even slimmer mountain passes with high crumbling rock walls built high above on either side, always threatening to send a landslide rolling down on top of them whenever they shot through, disturbing the peaceful mountain tranquility. Passing travellers usually took these roads slowly and carefully for fear of becoming one of the many casualties that resulted from negligent driving on those roads.

But Duo and Solo usually raced this way just because of that very risk. It was their usual course, and though the roads were always the same familiar asphalt paths, there were always wild and dangerous stunts to be pulled along the way. Neither was afraid to take the chance of dying in their heated battle of speed and machinery. Besides, the uncontrolled rage that sparked between them made them crazy enough to care less about life and death. What mattered was kicking the other one’s ass and taking home the prize and the glory. The pride of winning kept Duo pulsating with life and did more to help remind himself that he was not worthless garbage than anyone else.

{Hello, hello, hello, how low?}

They were soon dogging it out on hazardous curves as they zoomed further away from town and into the lonely mountain passes. The pounding rhythm of Duo’s grungy, punk tune echoed under the sound of roaring engines, screaming his rage to the moody ocean that crashed against the beach rimmed bases of the cliffs far down below. He spun his wheel with much gusto, swinging his vehicle onto the left side of the highway, willing Deathscythe to fly by Epyon and into the lead.

As the two cars raced beside one another, quivering at an even speed, Duo glanced quickly to his right to get a look at Solo. Solo was gunning his engine to its max, Duo could tell. Even still, despite the horrible sneers that were passed across the slender gap of space that darted between the two accelerating cars, Duo could tell that Solo had yet to get desperate. He still sported that smug, determined smirk on his face, as if he had some hidden ace still tucked up his sleeve. This sent alarms whirring off loud and red in his head. This revamped Epyon was quite a step-up from its former identity, Tallgeese, as far as speed went; they had been racing side-by-side for almost a full minute now, a new record for the books. But what else had White Fang done to the Tallgeese to make them so proud of it as Epyon? There had to be something that drove them to repaint and rename the thing. But what could it be? Duo worried that he might find out the hard way what made Epyon a new formidable opponent.

“Enough of this shit!” Solo suddenly screamed above the noise at Duo, jerking his steering wheel to the left, veering the nose of Epyon into a crunching impact against the passenger side of Duo’s hood, right by the whirling tire. He pulled the steering wheel back in the other direction and guided Epyon ahead of the impeded Deathscythe, leaving the gleaming black Thunderbird to waver unsteadily in the road behind him.

“What the fuck!?” Duo exclaimed as he watched the whole thing unfold in slow motion. As Solo sped off further down the road, Duo fought to keep his car from spinning out of control. With the expert skill that had come from years and years of driving, Duo ripped off his seatbelt and, with one long leg stretched out into the nook beneath the steering wheel, so that his foot was still depressing the gas pedal, he stood up as much he could, peering over the windshield to survey the damage to the right side of his hood. A tiny sliver of smoke was slithering up from underneath the rumpled hood, suggesting that something had gotten destroyed in the impact. “That dirty, low, cheating, rat bastard!” Duo grunted to himself, resting all his weight on the steering wheel and kept it as steady as he could, considering his odd position. Duo turned his focus back to the road, settling back into a natural driving position, not even bothering to pull his seatbelt back on, he was so pissed. “What is that Epyon made of?” Duo wondered aloud. “A bump like that shouldn’t have caused so much trouble!”

{’With the lights out,
It’s less dangerous!
Here we are now;
Entertain us!
I feel stupid
And contagious!
Here we are now;
Entertain us!
A mulatto!
An albino!
A mosquito.
My Libido!
Yay! Hey! Yay!}

Solo had not gotten much further ahead, and Duo was pretty sure that he could catch up if not too much of the engine had been hurt. He reached down below the glowing radio panel to thumb a gray handle-like console that Hilde had installed into the dashboard. The handle had four shallow dips in its shape to make it easier and more comfortable to grip with a flat button installed underneath each, and two more similar buttons on the end of it where the thumb would rest. A red and a yellow wire wound from the inside of the lever and snaked around the thick steel ribbons that held it firmly in place, running into the dashboard and deep inside the belly of the engine. It was Noin’s design and Hilde’s handiwork; they had collaborated on this upgrade for the engine’s extra boosters and Duo hoped to God it worked. If not, the worst that could happen would be that the thrusters would backfire and the explosion it caused would spread throughout the engine and along the wires connecting everything to the dashboard console, resulting in a huge fire and his immediate death. But that was only the worst case scenario. Worst....

His long slim fingers curled around the thruster, the pad of his thumb stroking one of the buttons on the end of the handle, contemplating whether or not it was a good idea to press it. “Aw fuck it. I’ll lose either way,” he eventually scoffed, pulling his thumb out straight before slamming it back down atop the slightly rounded gray button with a determined motion.

The engine made a series of low guttural, sputtering noises the moment Duo lifted his thumb from the button. The braided boy gripped the wheel in preparation for whatever his moody little set of wheels had in store for him. A coughing bang exploded from underneath the machine, a dark green puff of smoke exuding from the rear, where a sudden crackle of flame had jumped to life from an extra exhaust pipe installed just for that added punch.

“Ooh, Noin, Hilde, I could kiss you both,” Duo grinned to himself as the effects of the explosion sent Deathscythe propelling down the road, quickly making short work of the gap that had grown between Solo and him. He reached down to the radio and cranked the volume louder, hoping that his speaker system would forgive him for maxing them out so carelessly. It was worth it though; he wanted to make sure Solo knew that he was coming. “Take that, asshole,” Duo shouted at his arch-rival as Deathscythe came flying by Epyon, little tails of what had been a very extravagant boost still trailing out from behind him in long, curling wisps, as he took the next curve haphazardly.

{I’m worse at what I do best,
And for this gift I feel blessed.
Our little group has always been
And always will until the end.}

The road was suddenly plunged into pitch darkness as it disappeared into a long winding tunnel that cut through the heart of one of the mountains. Duo’s radio reverberated loudly off of the tunnel’s arched ceiling in harmony with the growling of his engine as he floored it, hoping to milk the very last of that boost as long as possible. Deathscythe’s yellowish headlights bathed the road right in front of Duo in an eerie gold, the solid line running along the center of the road wavering underneath the car as it sailed along. An increased intensity in the sound of his purring engine gave him more confidence, even after the boost had long worn off. The sound of Duo’s almost insane laughter drowned out all other noises, making the radio’s driving grungy beat and raspy vocals sound like little more than a whisper in the empty night.

{Hello, hello, hello, how low?}

He could practically feel Solo’s headlights burning twin holes in the back of his head when Epyon surged after him into the tunnel. A quick glance up into his rearview mirror revealed the encroaching dark shadow glowing in the bright red of his tail lights, highlighted with the backwash of its own golden front lamps. It seemed that Epyon had been outfitted with a booster of its own because it was approaching Duo from behind at an alarmingly quick rate. Duo made a noise from the side of his mouth, returning his eyes to the road. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I lose to him.”

“Hey, Maxwell, don’t take it so hard if you lose!” Solo shouted mockingly from just behind him, the echo in the tunnel making his voice sound much more menacing than it really was. “It’s just a game!” Duo gritted his teeth angrily as a streaking bullet of dark bloody red sped by in the left lane, soon overtaking him and gliding directly in front of him. Epyon lingered about ten yards ahead of him, though whether it was because Solo was taunting him or simply just unable to go any faster, Duo was unsure.

“This has gotten to be more than just a game and you damn well know it!” Duo shouted in response, his ass rising a little bit off Deathscythe’s low vinyl driver’s seat.

{With the lights out,
It’s less dangerous!
Here we are now;
Entertain us!
I feel stupid
And contagious!
Here we are now;
Entertain us!
A mulatto!
An albino!
A mosquito!
My Libido!
Yay! Hey! Yay!}

They came hurtling out of the tunnel at top speed moments later, Solo still in the lead. That glistening rear bumper was making Duo sick with anger and rage. He hated being behind, being left alone to fend for himself by those who were supposed to have been his friends, by those who were supposed to have cared. That was part of the reason why he hated people who tended to float around in the fickle upper crusts of society’s social circles. They were the ones who would leave you flat on your ass with nothing and hardly a reason why. It hurt fucking well enough when it happened with people who were supposed to be your understanding equals without any help from people like them.

Duo’s right hand shot out for the thruster again, gripping it even more determinedly than before. Even though Noin and even Hilde, who usually were up for just as much risk as he was, had warned him to be very careful to give the engine enough time to cool down before he used the booster again, he figured that if he hadn’t blown up the first time, he wasn’t going to blow up again. The first trial was always the only real gamble; after that, anything was fair game.

The road forked off into opposite directions a little further down the way, the right doubling back home and the left venturing off towards the rest of the state’s ever-growing highway system. The deviation marked the beginning of the home stretch and seeing it just made Duo’s resolution to come out on top intensify even more, especially when the glowing lights of Epyon swung to the right in a speeding streak that marked the black night air like a glowing marker. Duo silently urged the pistons in his engine to whip around faster, as if it were physically possible for the machine to have any more RPM. His fingers drummed against the thruster in time with the music’s thobbing beat as he neared the fork, biding his time until he felt it would be most strategic to gun the engine again.

{And I forget just why I taste.
Oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile.
I found it hard; it was hard to find.
Oh well, whatever, nevermind.}

Duo veered to the right, following the road at a disgustingly fast speed as he did so. Epyon soon came into view again, burning Duo’s retinas. That was it; he mashed his thumb on the other button, the explosion shuddering through the car almost immediately. The lights of their town were starting to climb up over the horizon like stars coming out from behind the clouds as the road began to rush closer and closer to the finish. Duo thought he could even just make out the parking lot where the race had begun from this vantage point. Solo’s tail lights were nearing with great celerity as Deathscythe neared its opponent. Duo was sure that at any second he would be able to pass Solo.

He spun the wheel to the left and guided the car onto the other side of the road, ready to spend his extra speed on a narrow pass right by Solo to take the lead once more. Applying pressure to the button underneath his little finger, which made the sudden jet of speed more even and spread out, he drove Deathscythe down the road, his bumper now just even with Solo’s taillights.

{Hello, hello, hello, how low?}

Before he knew it, he was almost exactly parallel to Solo. He could see that rugged and unfamiliar face that had once been that of a dear friend reflected in the side mirror fixed on Epyon’s reddish hull. Duo wanted to just sail right past that horrible face and forget it. It was more disturbing to think how he had once looked forward to seeing Solo every single day; now the only reason he wanted to see Solo was to make him sorry for being so disgustingly prejudiced and unfair to him in his youth.

He was running low on speed, but that was alright since he was almost past Solo. He smoothly flicked his rival off, knowing how much it would piss the other boy off, as he drove by, laughing darkly to himself as he felt the grasp of victory starting to wrap its arms around his neck, sending a chill down his spine.

Duo took two seconds to glance down at the radio flashing its jagged rhythm lights across its tiny little screen and started to fiddle with the volume, hoping to drive his anthem right down Solo’s throat as he rolled back into the parking lot. That was probably the largest and most costly mistake he could have ever made; someone with as much road experience as Duo should have known better than to ever take his eyes away from what was in front of him for even a second. The moment everything around him became engulfed in a brilliant white light, he knew that his two seconds of cockiness had cost him dearly. Snapping his head up from the radio, his lips curling back into a panicked snarl as he took in the sight of the oncoming SUV, he quickly started weighing up his options, already trying to make a quick choice before another delay cost him more than just a race.

{With the lights out,
It’s less dangerous!
Here we are now;
Entertain us!
I feel stupid
And contagious!
Here we are now;
Entertain us!}

Hoping to at least knock Solo off road a little with this blunder, Duo drove Deathscythe violently back into the right lane, but much to Duo’s complete and utter bewilderment, the impact to Epyon’s side did more damage to Deathscythe than it did to its intended victim. Duo was now caught lingering out of control on the yellow dividing line as Epyon surged onward with even more of an advantage than it had before Duo’s near head-on collision, The SUV was now passing on the other side, just nicking Duo’s rear bumper enough to send Deathscythe careening off to the side of the road. He quickly scrambled for his seat belt, buckling it in a last ditch effort to save himself. The last thing Duo registered before everything went starry and blank was the fast approaching rock wall that saved him from careening over some cliff and the screaming end to a song that would haunt him until he had a chance to win his pride back.

{A mulatto!
An albino!
A mosquito!
My Libido!
A denial.
A denial.
A denial....}

(x) X (x)

It was still dark when Duo came to a bit later. He was slumped in the driver’s seat of his crumpled car, trying to remember what had happened to him. Oh yeah, he realized, surveying Deathscythe’s crunched hood and steaming engine, I fucked myself over. Great. Now Solo’s gonna be after my ass for his prize and I don’t think I’ll be able to pay him off this time. Just brilliant.

The radio’s lights were blinking erratically, though Duo was pretty sure that had more to do with the car’s ruined battery than any damage to the actual music unit itself. Likewise, the car’s digital clock was wavering on and off, thankfully not resetting itself to some obscure time like most clocks tend to do when their power source was cut off and matched Duo’s wristwatch. It currently was flashing the time 2.01AM, which meant that he had only been unconscious for about ten minutes since the impact, a rather shocking surprise to Duo, considering the speed he had been going at when he lost control of the car.

“God, what did Solo plate that car with?” Duo wondered aloud, closing his eyes as he massaged his temples with the first two fingers of both his hands in an effort to soothe the rip-roaring headache that was currently holding a party in between his ears. “There is no physical way that I should have been the one to spin out of control after hitting him the way I did.” Duo quickly replayed the whole scenario in his head again, going over the sciences of it and affirmed his statement: “Absolutely no fucking way!”

The sounds of drunken shouting suddenly made their way to Duo’s ears, sending him into full alert. His hands quickly fumbled with his seatbelt, which had definitely been the sole thing that had restrained him in this life when Deathscythe had hit the mountain side, and soon he was carefully pulling himself from the wrinkled metal vehicle. Standing a couple feet away from Deathscythe, he took a few seconds to note that the only real damage had been done to the car’s hood and the engine underneath it, and that it was a fairly salvageable mess, albeit with a lot of extra and unwanted work.

He suddenly became aware of a loud hubbub coming from somewhere further down the road. Solo’s unadulterated laugh tore Duo’s mind away from any mechanical technicalities on the spot, his eyes darting about frantically as he quickly glanced around for any sight of White Fang; he was sure they had to be somewhere nearby, presumably coming back up to the mountain roads, from the finish line, to look for him in their victory slosh of booze. “I’ll worry about you another day, baby,” Duo promised his ruined beauty reassuringly before taking off in the opposite direction of the laughter. “Gotta save my ass first!”

Thankfully, Duo had just about every shortcut and hidden pathway within a ten mile radius of the town completely memorized like the back of his hand. In an ordinary situation, he probably would have just used his atomic-splitting power to get away quickly, but his body and state of mind were far to weak for that kind of concentration and strain. Before long, he was sliding down a long ivy rope that wound its way down the mountains and to the beach that ran between the ocean and the boardwalk, back near familiar territory. He had managed to loop around the wandering White Fang and hoped that he would at least be able to find a good hiding spot for the night, before they got sobered up enough to realize that he was no longer with Deathscythe and probably way out of sight for a while, at least until he could get enough cash to pay them off. Winning over and over had its advantages as it constantly kept money in Duo’s pocket; the downside was that if (and in this case, when) he lost, that meant quite a bit of paying back, which Duo just did not have the funds to do right then. He would have to lay low lest he wanted a severe beating for not being able to cough up the proper debt for his loss.

As he climbed up the boardwalk stairs that led to his street, he paused, thinking to himself. Going back to the garage probably wouldn’t be the smartest thing in the universe to do right now, he reasoned, knowing that it would definitely be the first place that Solo would look for him when he realized that Duo had hightailed it out of there.

He looked down the boardwalk both ways, expecting an alternative to simply jump out at him. The curly wrought iron lampposts glowed pale green, each one basking in its own eerie light along the mostly deserted boardwalk. There were a few people still out, some sitting on the boardwalk’s reversible wooden benches as they watched the lazy midnight ocean, others facing the other way to observe the other late-night wanderers as they made their way up and down the wooden pathway on quiet midnight vigils. A nearby clock proclaimed that it was now almost 3:00 AM.

Then it hit him. Just beyond the clock was Meilan’s board shop, sitting in the golden flush of its porch lights like some kind of heavenly refuge in the middle of a storm. She had given him a key earlier that day when he had come to call, and he figured that if she found him passed out on the floor the next day, she was not the type to rip his lungs out for something like that. Mind made up, he walked quickly down the boardwalk, suddenly afraid that Solo and company might just suddenly pop out of a trashcan or something and do something dastardly to him.

Reaching the shop, he smiled warmly at the gently swinging sign that sat out beside the narrow wooden bridge that crossed the ditch between the main boardwalk and Nataku’s front steps. He quickly rushed across it and took the steps two at a time, reaching the porch in hardly a second. His mind dully registered that the inside lights were still on, despite the fact that it was well beyond closing time. There were no words to describe the unbelievable wave of warmth and safety he felt once he had closed and locked the front door behind him. Even though he was all alone in a little hole-in-the-wall board shop that belonged to a girl he had known for maybe a week, he could not deny the fact that he felt strangely at home. He was sure that it meant something as feeling ‘at home’ was not something he had experienced since he had left the church orphanage as a boy.

Humming the tune of a low, throaty song that he had long since forgotten the words to, he made his way into the little nook cornered off by the counter. Worried that he might be seen through the window if he fell asleep sitting on the stool behind the register, he sunk tiredly to the floor and collapsed against the wall, soon lost in a deep and much needed sleep, during which his dreams all were sung to him in the voice of someone who loved him.

(x) X (x)

a/n: Howzat for some action, eh? Anyways, the chappy title’s the name of the album where the one Nirvana song all of you should know comes from. And while we’re on the subject, the insert song is said Nirvana song. *scoffs* But I bet if you’re reading this story, you didn’t need me to tell you that.

PS: Finally managed to catch 3 Doors Down after missing them in concert twice! Amazing show, I have to say! Now it is my intention to fully enjoy my snow day. See yas ‘round, people!

<< Last ~O~ Next>>